


True Blue

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Friendship, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post-Canon, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Jack's been given a truth drug, and someone's got to look after him.
Relationships: Peggy Carter & Daniel Sousa & Jack Thompson, Peggy Carter & Jack Thompson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 127
Collections: SSR Confidential 2020





	True Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redrikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts).



They found him behind the third door in a hallway of unmarked office doors. The other doors were unlocked; this one wasn't. From behind it, Peggy thought she could hear a muttered voice. 

Peggy glanced at Daniel, who nodded, and she drew back a foot. It took three tries to kick the door in with her sturdy-heeled shoe.

The mumbling cut off abruptly, and Jack's voice said in blurred surprise, "Whoa, Peggy."

Peggy took in the contents of the room at a glance. Jack was handcuffed to a chair by the wrists and ankles. Otherwise the room was slightly cluttered, but not in an implements-of-torture kind of way, more in the way of an unused office that had had most of the furniture moved to the side to make room for an interrogation.

They didn't seem to have gotten very far. Jack's shirt was torn open, revealing the livid, healing scars from his recent surgeries; that, and the bruises on his face, made her fingers curl on the grip of the gun, and she felt Daniel tense beside her. But Jack didn't appear to be badly hurt -- at least not visibly. She didn't like the way his head was lolling back as if he had to struggle to keep it upright.

"Jack?" She hurried across the room and crouched in front of him. It took him a moment to track on her, eyes half-closed. His blond hair was dark with sweat. Drugs? she wondered. "Jack, say something."

Jack gave a soft laugh. If she'd had any doubt that he was drugged, his grin answered that, sloppy and tired; he had been just like this in the hospital. "Not a problem, talking, just at the moment. Can't seem to stop. Nice of you to take your time getting me out of here, by the way." 

At that, Daniel, covering the hall from the doorway, laughed aloud. "Trust Thompson to complain about us rescuing him wrong."

"Is that Sousa?" Jack's head came up and he looked suddenly much more alert than a moment ago, almost panicked.

"Yes, it's Daniel. Calm down." She was examining the cuffs. His wrists were raw; he'd clearly been struggling. "Oh, _Jack._ We don't have keys for these; perhaps the men downstairs --"

"Sousa needs to leave," Jack said, yanking futilely on the cuffs. "Now."

"Yeah, thanks for that, I can feel the love over here," Daniel said lightly, but he met Peggy's eyes across the room with a wordless question in them. Peggy could only lift her shoulder in a slight shrug.

"I said get _out,"_ Jack snapped at him. 

Daniel looked startled, and then somewhere between worried and annoyed. "You need help in here, Peggy?"

"I can handle Thompson," Peggy said, and over the top of Jack's muttered, "No you can't," she added, "Why don't you go down and check the men we overpowered to see if there are handcuff keys. I can pick these, but no need if I don't have to."

"Back in five, yell if you need me." He closed the door on his way out -- wonderful, thoughtful Daniel. She heard his crutch click rapidly away in the hallway.

"You needn't snap at him," she said. "You'll be running me off next, I assume?" As she spoke, she got out her lock picks. In case Daniel didn't find keys, she might as well get a head start.

"I wish you _would_ leave, but I know there's no hope of getting you to actually go," Jack said darkly.

"A minute ago you were complaining about us not showing up soon enough."

"Yeah, before they gave me the drugs would have been good." His head lolled back; he looked up at the ceiling.

"What did they give you?" Peggy asked, probing at the lock. Her lock-picking skills were rusty; she needed to practice more.

"Haven't got the foggiest clue. Something to make me talk. And I sure have been, babbling like a canary, about whatever comes into my head -- like this, say. I can stop it if I try, sort of, but I have to work on it and I can't always control what comes out." He clenched his jaw, cutting off the flow of words.

"Oh," Peggy murmured. The lock sprang open at that moment, but it was secondary to her moment of realization. She knew, now, why Jack had been so adamant that he didn't want Daniel in the room, but seemed so much less bothered by having her here.

He was afraid he'd say something about Okinawa.

"Was it Leviathan that had you?" she asked, to give him something else to focus on. Jack gave a soft gasp as she pried the metal cuff out of the bleeding, abraded flesh of his wrist. She wished she and Daniel had hit the men downstairs a little harder. "What did you tell them?"

"Not a whole lot. Well, I mean, I _did_ talk a lot, but I tried to keep it on the most useless possible topics. I told them a lot about the SSR motor pool and who's dating who in Daniel's office -- which, by the way, do you even know what a hotbed of gossip and illicit sex this place is? It must be the LA influence. I know for a fact, for example, that Morrison's wife is sleeping with --"

"I can only commend your strategy," Peggy interrupted the flow of words. The other cuff went faster; she had it open almost immediately. "Jack, can you move your hand?" His fingers were swollen and cold to the touch. She knew from the war that nerve damage could easily result from improperly applied cuffs, but Jack obediently waggled his fingers, and winced. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

"Pins and needles. Stings like hell." Jack started to shake his hand, but stopped with a grimace, raised it to touch his chest. "Ah."

"That too? May I?" Peggy touched his hand questioningly; he nodded and moved it aside so she could unbutton his shirt and pull it back from the scars.

"Could be some of the stitches tore," Jack said, tipping his head back to look up at the ceiling again. "I've actually been sitting here wondering about that. Do you know, this is really annoying, saying everything that comes into my head like this."

"I expect so," Peggy murmured. "It's not bleeding. I think you're well past the tearing stitches stage, though I can hardly claim to be an expert. Did they hit you there?"

"A few times," Jack said. "It's what I'd have done. You find a weakness like that, you got to exploit it, that's what makes sense --" He grimaced, clenched his teeth, and abruptly looked away from her face. " _Damn_ it. Didn't mean to say that either. Oh well, you know what I am, Peggy."

"I do," she told him calmly, as she set to work on the other cuff. Nothing she could do about his chest just yet. "And I know what you're not, anymore."

He let out a sharp, shuddering sigh. "God. Who else is here? Can I just go somewhere quiet to sleep this off? You're going to take me to the hospital, aren't you."

"Jack, you just told me you might have internal bleeding. Of course you should go to the hospital." But, as she bent down to begin working on his ankle cuffs, she felt for him. She understood what a private person he was. The idea of having her own thoughts and feelings laid bare in such a manner turned her stomach.

"Keys!" Daniel said from the doorway, and Peggy felt Jack tense up, getting even tenser as Daniel crutched over to them. "Here you go, Peg. The building's secure; Boswell has a team downstairs mopping up." He laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "How you doin' there?"

"Better without you here," Jack said tersely. Peggy, as she glanced up from the ankle cuffs, saw him jerk his shoulder away from Daniel's touch. A flash of hurt went across Daniel's face, there and gone.

"Well, okay then, if that's how you're going to have it. You need help getting him downstairs, Peggy?"

"No," Jack said.

"Wasn't actually asking you. You know, I forgot how much of a barrel of laughs you are when you're feeling lousy."

"I think we've got it sorted," Peggy cut in before Jack could say anything else. "If things are under control here, I'm going to drive Jack to the hospital --"

"No hospital," Jack said between his teeth, staring at the wall. He had his hands in his lap and was rubbing the somewhat less-swollen left hand over the abraded flesh of his right wrist.

He looked terrible, but it was likely, she thought, that he wasn't badly hurt. His breathing was fine, and other than the drugs messing with his equilibrium, he didn't seem too bad off. Still ...

"I think you should have some supervision overnight, even if we don't take you to the hospital," she told him. "Shall I drive you to Howard's, perhaps?" 

After a moment, Jack gave a small, tight nod. Peggy gave him a hand getting up, but he pulled away from her. "I'm fine," he said shortly, and then his legs went out from under him and he tilted sideways. Peggy lunged in, and Daniel caught him from the other side.

"Looks like this is gonna be a two-man job after all," Daniel said, his voice lifting with a suppressed laugh. "Sorry, Peg; one-man, one-woman job."

Peggy could feel Jack tensing up for, probably, some kind of objection, even though his legs were wobbling where he stood. To stall him out and give him something else to focus on, she said quickly, "Jack, while we get you downstairs can you tell us more of what you told Leviathan?"

His answers were surly, but not as rambling as before. It might be wearing off, she thought hopefully. Though he was still extremely wobbly. They got him downstairs and poured him into the passenger seat of an SSR car, and then Daniel took Peggy aside.

"You think taking him back to Howard's is a good idea?" he murmured.

"Not really, but if I take him to the hospital he'll fight me on it the entire way. He's a private person, Daniel. He doesn't like being out of control like this."

"And he's blaming me for the entire thing," Daniel said. "Look, I get it. It's my coast, my department. Tell him -- no, never mind."

He was upset, she realized in surprise -- hurt or angry or both. He was just trying hard to hide it. She hadn't realized it would bother him this much. The worst part was that he was wrong.

"Daniel," she began, touching his arm. But there wasn't any comfort she could offer, not without turning Daniel's bloodhound-like attention on Jack's secret. She had no way to tell him that the problem was that Jack cared more than Daniel knew.

"He just doesn't want anyone to see him like this," was what she landed on, and Daniel grimaced.

"No, but he's decided you have nothing better to do than nursemaid him. Thought we were past that kind of thing, but apparently not."

Peggy would have liked to have kissed him, or at least taken him firmly by the shoulders and given him a good shake, but they had an unspoken understanding to stay away from emotional displays at work. "Do you really think Chief Thompson can make me do anything I don't choose to do?"

This got a reluctant smile out of him. "Want me to come by Howard's after we mop up here?"

"Of _course._ Please."

She indulged herself in a brush of her fingers across his hand, and got into the car.

Jack was quiet, his head tilted to the side, resting against the door. She couldn't tell whether he was asleep or not, and rather hoped he was, but the silence only lasted until she put the car in gear; then Jack said, "What's Danny-Boy think of you taking me off to your love nest?"

"I'd thank you not to be crude, Jack."

"Sorry." He was quiet for a moment.

"You should tell him, you know," she said. "About Okinawa."

There was a soft intake of breath, and then Jack said, "Yeah, that'd be a great idea. Sure, why not. That's what we need around the office, more friction."

"You're underestimating Daniel, I think. He was there too, in the war. We all did things then," she added, "that we aren't proud of."

Jack made a choked-off sound. "Whatever you did, it's not in the same ballpark as what I did, Carter, and you know it."

Peggy didn't answer for a minute, because there wasn't much she could answer to that; she wasn't going to placate him with foolish platitudes, and she didn't think he'd appreciate it anyway. Eventually she said, "It's obviously your choice. I'd ask you to consider, however, that if it's weighing on your mind to this extent, it's going to poison the well sooner or later, no matter what you intend. Would it be better if he finds out now, or susses it out five years from now, in a report you didn't mean him to read, or another incident like this one?"

"You know everything, do you?" Jack's tone was surly. "Agent Peggy Perfect Carter, so smug and self-righteous. Never did anything wrong in your life. You don't _know_ , Peggy --"

"Be quiet, Jack, before you carry this conversation to places you'll regret."

Through whatever reserves of willpower or sullenness, Jack was able to keep his mouth shut until she pulled around Howard's mansion and parked in the garage area, out of sight of the street. She came around to Jack's side of the car, and when she opened the door he said, on a sigh, "I can walk on my own."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

Jack got out and levered himself up, holding onto the car door, then took a careful step away, and shot her a sick-looking but weakly triumphant grin when his legs held.

"Fine, you've had quite the recovery, you can get into the house under your own power, then. I'm sure you remember the way to the east wing bedrooms from your time here after your shooting. I'll go check that the linens are clean."

"Peggy ..." Jack said, from behind her. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not angry, Jack."

She was, a little, but she worked it out tidying the bedroom and opening the windows. Not that it needed much tidying; Howard was, if nothing else, a man who liked having guests, and the east wing bedrooms were usually made up and ready for occupancy.

Jack tapped lightly at the open door. Under the brighter lights indoors, he looked sallow and pale, bruises standing out vividly against his chalky skin. There was some blood on the collar of his shirt. He limped in and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and it occurred to her that he was here without clean clothes or so much as a toothbrush.

"I'll go see about getting you some things to sleep in," Peggy said. "It's not as if we have any shortage, though you'll have to deal with Howard's taste in pajamas."

Jack grimaced. "The part that bothers me is dealing with what Howard probably gets up to in those pajamas."

"Hmm. A valid point. Perhaps I'll borrow something from Mr. Jarvis."

She smiled at him; he looked away. Peggy went off to see if the Jarvises were still up, thinking privately that Daniel had the better end of this deal.

She found Mr. Jarvis in the kitchen, rolling out dough for some sort of baking project; Peggy didn't know enough about baking (or care enough) to guess what it was going to be. She obtained an old pair of Jarvis's pajamas, which thankfully were a good deal more practical and less ludicrous than the silk things Howard preferred, and a smattering of toiletries: toothbrush, hairbrush and the like. ("Mr. Stark keeps them around for his lady guests." "Thank you, Mr. Jarvis; I don't think Jack needs to know that.")

She was quietly hoping Jack might be sleeping by the time she returned to the bedroom, but he was still sitting on the edge of the bed, gazing blankly off into space. He looked up swiftly when she came in, as if startled; it looked like he'd been half asleep just sitting there.

"You're all done in, aren't you." She laid the folded pajamas on the end of the bed. "Do you want any help cleaning up your wrists and such? I'll fetch the first aid kit."

Jack didn't reply. When she came back with the kit, a bowl of warm water, and a handful of soft cloths, she found that he hadn't even changed into the pajamas; he was still sitting on the bed with that thousand-yard stare. Peggy sighed, sat beside him, and reached for his hand, but he jerked it away.

"I can do that," he said, taking the wet cloth from her without looking at her face. "I seem to remember you took pains to avoid bandage duty when I was here before."

"Yes, but in that case we had a nurse coming over to do it." His hand slipped; he hissed as the cloth raked across the abraded skin, tearing at it. "Jack, let me help. I can do that."

"I've got it," Jack said between his teeth.

Peggy gave up and settled for picking things out of the first-aid kit for him. She handed him the iodine, then unrolled a gauze bandage and held it out so he could wrap it; she knew from experience how hard it was to do this sort of thing on yourself.

"I think it's wearing off," Jack said as he worked on the other wrist. "Easier to think clearly; less fuzzy."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Peggy asked, unrolling a fresh bandage.

"Yeah, mostly. Now I just feel like a heel."

"I'd say you're not responsible, but I don't think you'd appreciate hearing it, and it isn't precisely true anyway. I can assure you, however, that I'm not upset." She smiled slightly to herself as she held out the bandage and Jack, with a roll of his eyes, presented his arm for wrapping. "You've said much worse to me, over the years."

"Thanks for reminding me," Jack muttered, but he was smiling a little now, too. "How 'bout Sousa; think he's holding it against me?"

"I think you've certainly said much worse to him, too."

"Yes, fine, I'm a royal ass sometimes, thanks for reminding me."

"Open your shirt and let me see your chest."

Jack rolled his eyes again, but unbuttoned the top buttons. "So can I look forward to Sousa punching my lights out in defense of your honor?"

He was definitely feeling better than earlier. "My honor is in absolutely no danger, thank you."

"You wound me, Marge."

Peggy poked at the fresh bruising around the scars. "It doesn't look too bad. How does it feel?"

"Hurts," Jack said, "but not overly."

"You must still be drugged; you're admitting you're in pain."

Jack gave a soft snort. "Trust me, getting shot and having to answer nurses asking you that question ten times a day ... it wears you down. They always know when you're lying."

Peggy smiled. "Is the SSR hiring? We could use them in interrogations."

She was startled by his reaction: he jerked away, looking away from her, and fumbled with the buttons of the shirt, trying clumsily to button it up on his own -- his hands still weren't working quite as well as he seemed to want her to think. She had meant it playfully, and had to run it back in her head to remember his earlier babbling and realize that he thought she had meant it more pointedly.

 _Jack,_ she thought. But there wasn't much else she could do. She gave his shoulder a pat, which he shrugged away from, and began collecting the first-aid supplies. "You ought to get yourself changed," she told him. "If you want something to eat, Mr. Jarvis is going to bed, but he told me there will be fresh pastries in the kitchen and we're welcome to them."

"Don't know if I've got much of an appetite." Jack flicked his gaze up at her, hesitant, some of the prickly defensiveness receding. "Peggy ... thank you."

"You won't thank me tomorrow, when we'll have to debrief you."

"Right." He rubbed at his forehead, winced as he touched a bruise. "Forgot about that part."

"You should drink some water. If you want painkillers, there's some aspirin in the bathroom, I believe. I'll be up for a short while, if you change your mind about the pastries."

Jack only nodded, and Peggy withdrew, closing the door behind her. She sighed and leaned against the wall for a moment, then went to dispose of the first-aid supplies. She could smell baking from here, and it was no great hardship to stop by the kitchen, make herself a cup of tea, and appropriate a couple of the folded, fruit-filled pastries cooling on the sideboard.

Her intent was to stay up until Daniel showed up, and she didn't mind the solitude, but she was not entirely displeased when Jack lurked into the kitchen. He'd washed, from the look of him -- his hair was wet, the dirt and blood cleaned from his face and hands -- and he wore the borrowed, ill-fitting pajamas. He was stumbling much less than earlier, though he limped in a way that suggested he'd stiffened up.

"Kinda hoping you'd gone to bed," Jack muttered. He went to the row of pastries on the cooling rack.

"Apricot on the left, cherry on the right," Peggy said. She didn't offer to leave; she was here first.

Jack merely grunted, found a saucer in a cabinet, and put one of each kind of pastry on it. He brought it over to the table.

"There was coffee earlier," Peggy said. "I could heat some. I wouldn't mind a fresh cup of tea anyway."

Jack shrugged.

When Peggy came back with the drinks, Jack glanced up and even offered the smallest of smiles as he took it. "You bringing me coffee without complaining. Never thought I'd see the day."

"I brought you plenty of coffee without complaining, you and the rest of the men in the office too."

"I stand corrected. Let's make that, coffee delivered without your usual expression that suggested you'd like to flavor it with my internal organs."

"I had no such expression."

"Oh, you totally did, Marge."

She wanted to laugh at the look on his face, but lost the desire when his expression changed to a spasm of pain, and he touched his side briefly. She knew all too well what that was like, the way you hardly felt a beating at first, and then the aches and muscle spasms began to kick in.

"If the drugs have cleared out of your system, I'm sure a painkiller wouldn't go amiss," she said.

"Whatever." Jack waved her off.

She'd half expected him to have gone back to bed by the time she got back with the bottle of aspirin, but he was still there. Peggy poured out three into his palm, and he swallowed them with a slug of coffee -- to which, from the smell, he'd added a good slug of bourbon.

"Jack ..." she said, as she took the seat across from the table and picked up her cooling cup of tea. "We'll debrief officially tomorrow, of course. But tonight, just between us ... is there anything I shouldn't ask you about, when we're speaking on the record? Topics you would prefer me to steer us away from?"

Jack's expression was a strange one, annoyed and fond all at once. "Peggy, that is the most _you_ way of asking if someone's all right that I've ever heard."

"It was a serious question, _Chief Thompson."_

"I know it was," he said gently, and took a drink of the doctored coffee. "No, Peggy; I'm no longer at the mercy of my own drugged motor mouth, so it won't be an issue."

"Yes, because that's entirely the extent of my concern." She smothered a yawn.

"Waiting up for Sousa, are you?"

"Are you?" she asked, hit with a sudden suspicion, and Jack abruptly looked guilty and evasive.

Well ... she had suggested they should talk about it. She just hadn't meant _now,_ with Jack worn out and cranky, coming down from a dose of God only knew what chemicals and a torture session that still must be messing with him in a variety of ways. And Daniel would be tired and on edge, perhaps still upset and hurt from whatever he thought of Jack's reaction earlier ...

But when else, then? Their lives were never stable and rarely still.

As if in response to her thoughts, the door slammed. Peggy half rose from her chair, reaching for the handbag on the counter with her gun in it, and she noticed Jack's sharp flinch as well. But there was the reassuring click of Daniel's crutch a moment later, coming their way.

He paused briefly when he came into the kitchen and saw both of them there, but recovered a second later. "Hi, Peg. Hey, Jack." He crutched over and kissed the top of Peggy's head, and she reached up to put an arm around him. "How's the patient?"

"Fine," Jack said. He wasn't quite meeting Daniel's eyes. "Can we ... talk?"

Daniel looked surprised, and slightly wary. "Can I eat something first?"

"The pastries are available to all, according to Mr. Jarvis," Peggy said, cutting in. She rose from the table, and didn't have to fake a wider yawn. "As for myself, I'll be turning in. Daniel, your usual guest bedroom is made up." From the last time, as he was hardly ever in it, but the rest of the household seemed willing to persist in humoring their polite fiction.

"Uh, yeah." Daniel looked even more wary now. Peggy tangled her fingers briefly in his, and gave him a light kiss, a brush of her lips across his -- ignoring Jack's gagging noises, which were a de facto part of the performance by now.

"Good night, both of you." She patted Jack's shoulder as she went past, and left the room before she could second-guess herself.

You couldn't control people, or tell them what to think. They'd do what they would do. And she _had_ to have faith in Daniel, that he was the man she thought he was.

Beyond that ... it would be what it was going to be.

*

It was later, much later, when Daniel slipped into the bedroom. Peggy hadn't meant to stay awake; she had thought she'd be asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. But here she was, lying awake in the dark, until a flare of the hallway light painted the opposite wall of the bedroom before the door closed again. There were the small sounds of Daniel moving about, trying not to wake her, followed by a quiet curse as he bumped into the nightstand.

"I'm awake," she said softly, and he huffed out a laugh.

"Course you are."

He didn't sound upset. She sat up, her sheer nightdress sliding against her skin, and with her dark-adapted eyes caught glimpses of the pale flash of Daniel's shirt, the wink of faint light on his crutch as he undressed.

"You're dying to ask questions, aren't you?" he said over his shoulder.

"I wouldn't pry, Daniel."

"Oh, no, of course not," he said, ending in a grunt as he undid the straps on the prosthetic leg. "You're never curious about anything. 'No questions Carter,' we used to call you back in the old office --"

Peggy leaned over and smacked him lightly in the arm. Daniel chuckled, but it faded into silence in the dark.

After a little while punctuated by small rustles, he said quietly, "I know that you know what we were talking about."

Peggy didn't know what to answer, so she stayed quiet. Daniel slid under the covers and put out an arm, and she came to him, nestling against his body.

"I knew something changed between you two in Belarus," he said softly, into her hair. "And I knew, or at least I suspected, that there was more to his war-hero story than the public version, if only because of the way he stopped talking about it around the office and started changing the subject whenever it came up. So this was, maybe, the last few pieces in a puzzle I'd been putting together for a while."

"Is it something that you want to talk about?" she asked.

She felt him shake his head. "Not right now. Still working things out."

"You and Jack ..."

"Still working things out," he said, in a tone that was quiet but final.

It didn't take him long to fall asleep after that; she felt him twitch and relax, his breathing smoothing out. Peggy, however, was about as wide awake as she'd ever been. With a deep sigh, she slid carefully out from under Daniel's arm, and even more stealthily, off the other side of the bed. She wrapped herself up in one of the flowered silk wraps Ana had lent her, and went quietly, and perhaps a bit guiltily, to look for Jack.

The big house was very quiet, and most of the lights were off. The kitchen had been cleaned up -- by Daniel, she was sure, not Jack; the crumbs were swept up, their cups neatly washed. Peggy drifted through the house. Jack was most likely in bed, she thought, where he ought to be. She should get back to her own as well.

And she would. In a moment.

It was the slight smell of cigarette smoke that tipped her off. She followed it out to the patio on the edge of the pool. The outer lights were off, but the pool lights were on, wavering through the water. Jack was sitting in one of the patio chairs; the red tip of his cigarette flared in the dark. She had rarely seen him smoke.

"That you, Peggy?"

"It's me," she confirmed, and came over. He didn't sound particularly upset, just thoughtful. When she sat down in the chair on the other side of the small patio table, she saw that he'd moved on from coffee with bourbon to a glass of bourbon neat, and he'd brought the bottle with him.

"Drink?" Jack asked. "You'll have to supply your own glass."

"I don't need one," she said, and drank from the bottle itself. Jack made a small choking sound. "I hope you don't plan to stay out here and drink yourself silly; that's not going to be a good condition for your debriefing tomorrow."

Jack snorted. "I am _not_ 'drinking myself silly.' I'm having a drink and a smoke before bed. Or at least, I was until you showed up."

"It doesn't seem to have stopped you."

He took a sip without answering; so did she. Peggy tipped her head back. In the clear L.A. skies, sometimes she could see the stars even with the city lights. New York had been much hazier.

"Daniel didn't seem upset," she said.

Jack crushed out the butt of the cigarette. "And if I ask you to mind your own business?"

"Then I'll drop it."

"As evidenced by the way that you immediately wandered off to find me and grill me for information." But he sounded more amused than angry.

"Please, don't flatter yourself," Peggy scoffed. "I couldn't sleep."

"Me neither," Jack said. He tilted back his head, and, like her, looked up at the stars. After a minute, he said quietly, "But I think I might be able to, now. You?"

"Yes," she said. He didn't sound upset, or hurt, any more than Daniel had. However the conversation had gone, it didn't seem to have overturned things too badly for either of them. "Yes, I think I can."

She got up, and offered him a hand. Jack hesitated, then laid his nearly-empty glass aside, and clasped her hand in his, and let her help him up.


End file.
